Having found experimentally that two hundred unselected adult persons wrote a model test sentence in from twenty-seven to sixty seconds, with an average value of 48.6 seconds, the idea suggested itself that it might be possible to trace out step by step the early stages in the evolution of this time factor if determinations of speed were made among groups of school children. For such tests suitable material was available in the Roman Catholic Orphanage of San Francisco, an institution for girls, in which they are given courses of instruction in the same consecutive grades as in the public school. Without selecting them in any way, one hundred of the students were tested. The age range was from 8 to 17 years.

TECHNICThe girls were admitted to the examining room one at a time. The specimens of handwriting were obtained in the following manner: On a blank library filing